/*
 * jPOS Project [http://jpos.org]
 * Copyright (C) 2000-2015 Alejandro P. Revilla
 *
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as
 * published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the
 * License, or (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 * GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
 * along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 */

package org.jpos.iso;

/**
 * This interface supports the encoding and decoding of binary data. Common
 * implementations are literal or no conversion, ASCII Hex, EBCDIC Hex and BCD.
 *
 * @author joconnor
 * @version $Revision$ $Date$
 */
public interface BinaryInterpreter {
	/**
	 * Converts the binary data into a different interpretation or coding. Standard
	 * interpretations are ASCII Hex, EBCDIC Hex, BCD and LITERAL.
	 *
	 * @param data   The data to be interpreted.
	 * @param b      The byte array to write the interpreted data to.
	 * @param offset The starting position in b.
	 */
	void interpret(byte[] data, byte[] b, int offset);

	/**
	 * Converts the raw byte array into a uninterpreted byte array. This reverses the
	 * interpret method.
	 *
	 * @param rawData The interpreted data.
	 * @param offset  The index in rawData to start uninterpreting at.
	 * @param length  The number of uninterpreted bytes to uninterpret. This number may be
	 *                different from the number of raw bytes that are uninterpreted.
	 * @return The uninterpreted data.
	 */
	byte[] uninterpret(byte[] rawData, int offset, int length);

	/**
	 * Returns the number of bytes required to interpret a byte array of length
	 * nBytes.
	 */
	int getPackedLength(int nBytes);
}